australian news: Finally ready for delivery: midwives through Medicare

http://tinyurl.com/au8jf

Finally ready for delivery: midwives through Medicare
By Mark Metherell and Jacqueline Maley
Sydney Morning Herald August 16, 2005


The Federal Government will for the first time consider extending Medicare
to midwives - the bridesmaids of maternity care.
The Minister for Health, Tony Abbott, has told advocates of midwifery he
will consider paying midwives Medicare benefits if their patients have been
referred by doctors.

Midwives described Mr Abbott's gesture as a breakthrough. They have battled
resistance from doctors and officials for federal recognition for many
years.

"For someone like Tony Abbott to use the words midwife and Medicare in the
same sentence is an important new development," the executive officer of the
Australian College of Midwives, Barbara Vernon, said yesterday.

Dr Vernon said countries where midwives played a bigger role in managing
pregnancy and childbirth had lower costs and fewer interventions by doctors,
including caesarean deliveries.

She said a greater role for midwives, particularly in country areas, would
reduce the need for expectant patients to travel to bigger towns for
childbirth - a situation blamed for several recent emergency births en
route.

The lack of Medicare payments, and difficulties securing medical indemnity
cover, has largely prevented independent private practice by midwives and
means most of Australia's 12,500 midwives are employed by hospitals.
Mr Abbott's spokeswoman said he would examine the midwives' proposals "but
has made no commitment".

The leader of the Australian Democrats, Lyn Allison, who initiated a meeting
last week with Dr Vernon and Mr Abbott, said Mr Abbott had acknowledged the
merit in plans for a national maternity services policy and promised to ask
his department to explore greater use of midwives.

"This is a major breakthrough and I congratulate the Government on finally
listening to women and giving them a choice," Senator Allison said.

Shea Caplice has been a midwife for more than 20 years and estimates she has
caught more than a thousand babies. But like other midwives she is not
covered by Medicare, and since 2002 has not got medical indemnity insurance
as a private practitioner.

"It's been a long time coming," Ms Caplice said of the mooted changes. "Even
podiatrists get access to Medicare, but not women having babies wanting a
midwife."

Without a Medicare provider number it is difficult to schedule even the most
basic diagnostic tests, she said. "I love working with doctors but it seems
to be a competition. It's not a competition; it's just basic health care."

Ms Caplice has been appointed to co-ordinate a new home-birthing service at
St George Hospital. She says it is proof of the continuing demand for
midwifery.

"Certainly Medicare numbers will streamline the service I provide and make
it much more accessible for women, and that really is their right."

The Australian Medical Association's spokesman on obstetrics and
gynaecology, Andrew Pesce, said despite past resistance many doctors would
accept a greater role for midwives, if doctors could still decide whether to
keep riskier cases in their care.

But Dr Kenneth Clark, an obstetrician from the Royal Australian and New
Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, highlighted a "critical
need" for debate within the profession and with the public before funding
midwifery through Medicare.

Government funding of midwives in New Zealand had limited women's choices,
not expanded them, he said.

The secretary of the NSW Midwives Association, Hannah Dahlen, said evidence
increasingly pointed to midwives as the most appropriate carers for women
during low-risk childbirths.

Studies had shown midwife-led births had much lower rates of intervention,
such as forceps delivery. Women reported higher satisfaction with the
experience, and were more likely to breast-feed successfully for longer, she
said.

arachne wrote:
http://tinyurl.com/au8jf

Finally ready for delivery: midwives through Medicare
By Mark Metherell and Jacqueline Maley
Sydney Morning Herald August 16, 2005


The Federal Government will for the first time consider extending Medicare
to midwives - the bridesmaids of maternity care.
The Minister for Health, Tony Abbott, has told advocates of midwifery he
will consider paying midwives Medicare benefits if their patients have been
referred by doctors.


Sounds good in theory but I'll believe it when I see it! There are way
too many old obs who believe that midwives are too dangerous to even
practice at all unless under a doctor!

Jo (Mum to Will)

On Tue, 16 Aug 2005 12:54:23 +1000, arachne wrote:

http://tinyurl.com/au8jf


Yay! It would be a huge step forward if that happens.

Larissa